how do you guys share photos?

[rahulkothari]

hey people, how is everyone? Maaaann, pcguide is nearing the 30,000 members mark :) I am posting after a long time! I was almost out-of-touch with most of the people online and offline from last 2 years as I was pursuing a very hectic PG course in Interaction Design. Now I am done with studies and doing my final project in the industry.

The project is on 'photo sharing for mom and pop' aged 45+ and not very tech-savvy. I am currently researching on how people organise and share digital photographs in West. The way we share photos here is quite different because of various reasons.

I read few things on net like usually old photos(prints) are kept in boxes or envelopes apart from albums. People order prints online or take prints from printers installed in malls. Comments are written on the back of the print and most people put groups of photos from their digital cameras in folders which they name. Sometimes folders are grouped by year or other "super groups", but otherwise do little more to organize their photos, and rarely rename individual photo files.

Things that I am not very sure is the way you share photos with friends and family (not public sharing)

by email or upload it on flickr or other websites
How many photos do you generally share, i mean... do you select few pics because it takes time to upload all the pics of the event?
How often do you share
How difficult is sharing photos especially for (say) your parents or non-techy friends?

All these questions arise because I don't have real users to talk to and the interface I am coming up depends a lot on the above questions. Thanks for taking the time to read!
PS: Where should this kind of topic be posted? Is after-hours the right place? (just an after-thought!)

[SufferWell1396]

Like you said, not tech-saavy families. Yep, i got one, all my mom knows how to do is check e-mail, and same for my dad.

If i was going to share pics with my family i would just use Photobucket.com

[bassman]

My wife has shoeboxes filled and some put into hard albums. I have been trying to get her to get out old pics of her mother (no longer with us) and other important family pics so we can scan them in to an HDD. She is currently trying to work on creating albums of our vacation pics to burn to disk so that we might view them as a slide show when guests are over. This is a fairly simple thing to do as most home DVD players will play a slide show with no special programing on the disk.
I have been working on several web pages to share my pics of things like hiking and mycology.

[Sylvander]

I feel like a total beginner because I'm aware that the few possibilities I know of are only a small part of what is possible for the really knowledgeable.

However, here's what I've done so far.

1. Took lots of photo's at a fancy family wedding at top resolution on a 5 megapixel digital camera [200-700 kB each].
Sent copies of every one of them to the brides mother in Switzerland, one copy attached to each email.
The official photo's are hosted online by the professional photographers who took them, but I think most of mine are better [theirs are rather dark, they didn't brighten them]. :)

2. Scanned every paper photo we have onto PC.
One of my sisters sent me all her photo's and I scanned those too, and returned them.
I'm the only one of my siblings who has a PC; managed to persuade my sister to buy a PC, but it isn't online yet.
Another sister in Australia just will not buy a PC. :(
Nor will the other two in England.

3. My daughter gives me her camera to copy her photo's.
She says she's in the process of uploading her photo's and videos to a hosting site for me to fetch.

4. Uploaded certain chosen photo's to http://photobucket.com/ but don't really make much use of it to share those with others.

5. If giving lots of copies to other friends and family I'd probably upload them to HERE (http://www.verzend.be/) and send the link in an email.

6. The photo's on my PC are stored in a higherarchical folder system by family surname, people involved, time and place, and event, rather like a family tree.

7. How's this for a family photo [scanned] from 1915?
The little girl with the skipping rope is my wife's mother.
http://i18.photobucket.com/albums/b121/Sylvander/bd9a136c.jpg

[Rick]

I started the process of scanning ALL my old photos over a decade ago.
Using a 35mm film scanner

It can takes years to do the job. Especially when you have a couple of decades worth of photos to begin with :)

Scanning and then entering them into a database
This project was started before the days of cd burners.
I used and still have the original pd-mo drive
What you could call a cd-rw in a hard plastic case ..

My point here is to tell you.
DON'T try to do it all at once
Set up a database first.
setup your file system and folders
break everything down on paper before you do the first photo

One set of slides from 1975 ( 100 to a reel ) can/did take days to complete

[Whyzman]

Now I am done with studies and doing my final project in the industry.Is your "final project" writing a thesis, or dissertation on how people in various parts of the world save/share photos??

Are you looking for the technical aspects of digitizing/scanning, downloading, uploading?? Or, are you looking for more of the "interpersonal" dynamics of how we share pictures amongst family and friends??

[Fruss Tray Ted]

My point here is to tell you.
DON'T try to do it all at once

I scanned around 300 photos in the past, one-at-a-time, naming each of them, keeping them in appropriate folders, then the hard drive went poof! :eek: :mad: :(

Now making cd's as I go, I'm going to try filling the scanner bed with several photos, then cropping later to save time.

Sharing them?
Emails, links to hosting site, prints, cd's, etc, it all depends on who with and what they have. Photo paper is e-x-p-e-n-s-i-v-e and ink is too. Better to let the others worry about having the actual prints if they want.

[Whyzman]

I scanned around 300 photos in the past, one-at-a-time, naming each of them, keeping them in appropriate folders, then the hard drive went poof! :eek: :mad: :(That could invite one to become frustrated! ;)

[johnny_quest]

I pulled out boxes and boxes of photos and upon trying to scan them all at once, realized that of all the pictures people take, only maybe 10% are worth saving/scanning... so go through them by hand first and save yourself some trouble, ya know?

Make sure you use a good filenaming scheme that involves the date of the picture, that way you can browse them in chronoligcal order which is always interesting.

[HomeSA]

The project is on 'photo sharing for mom and pop' aged 45+ and not very tech-savvy.

On my side it's all about prints, and nothing but prints. We have to supply the prints. Good old photo albums. On wife's side, there is more willingness to venture out into the digital world. They have a digital camera and take it to the local print shop where images are selected, and prints are made. They end up in the photo album.

As an old film photography buff, I have thousands of pictures sitting in shoe boxes waiting to get scanned. From experience, I know that I'll be scanning maybe 20% of them since I am picky about what pictures I like and want to share.

As a side story here, the family decided that for my parents' 50th anniversary, we needed to prepare a slideshow. Somehow I got volunteered. After procrastinating until the morning of the anniversary, I ended up scanning 850 old photos, doing quick cropping, color adjustments and what not and rushing the CD to the event at the last possible moment. I worked non-stop for 12 hours, hardly leaving the chair. Needless to say that my rear end was mighty sore by the end of the day :rolleyes:

BTW, and for SufferWell1396, I was pushing my WINME machine to its limits and the thing didn't crash once in the entire time ;)

[Whyzman]

realized that of all the pictures people take, only maybe 10% are worth saving/scanning... Isn't that the truth! :p

Unless posed for, the average camera holder wields the device like a camcorder. The result is that the majority of the shots are taken "in the moment" with an emotional trigger finger capturing primarily the back of heads and rear ends. The faceless majority... :rolleyes:

Digital has helped immensely, in that you don't have to be printing up the faceless as you would with a 35mm...paying just to see that those irritating posed photos are really the way to go... ;)

[rahulkothari]

Thanks a lot everyone for replying. It has helped a lot. And sorry for writing such a long post!


Sylvander, the pic you have posted is Fantastic! I showed it to friends and they were like... 1915teeeeennn! The kid in the pic is your wife's MOTHER!! Wow! I took a print and now it's pinned up on my softboard :)

Is your "final project" writing a thesis, or dissertation on how people in various parts of the world save/share photos??

Are you looking for the technical aspects of digitizing/scanning, downloading, uploading?? Or, are you looking for more of the "interpersonal" dynamics of how we share pictures amongst family and friends??

As an interaction-design intern, I am concentrating more on the interface part of the project than the technical part. You are right - I am looking for more of the "interpersonal" dynamics.

Ok, here is the complete story. The company I am training at is coming up with a Desktop + Web platform called Dekoh (http://www.dekoh.com). There are some applications like photo sharing, music, book sharing etc - all of which are under alpha testing. The current photo sharing app is for users of all age groups and too techy-techy :p So my project is developing a very simple front-end for users aged 45+ who deal with digital photographs (clicked, scanned etc)

The project deliverables are an interface and a detailed documentation which will include the process followed to make the interface - like user studies, personas, scenarios, information architecture and stuff. The problem I am facing is, to make an interface suitable for people in the west, I need to study how you guys deal with photographs (both digital and non-digital). Because things here are very different, like a 45+ person (say) my dad is VERY different from you guys. So, as I come to know more, I can design accordingly.

for example:

As some of you mentioned, you scan old photos. I didn't think of this scenario because my dad will never do that for various reasons. Ditto for most people here.

Also, most of you take prints of digital photos. Here hardly anyone takes prints!

Old photos are stored in boxes. There is no concept of keeping things like photographs in boxes here!



So, i have to start with building Personas and Scenarios.

A persona is a user archetype you can use to gain understanding of their users’ expectations and needs which help guide decisions about product features, navigation, interactions, and even visual design.

Personas are synthesized after talking to real people. Although tasks are an important part of understanding users, a good persona description is not a list of tasks or duties; it’s a narrative that describes the flow of someone’s day, as well as their skills, attitudes, environment, technical knowledge and goals with a few fictional personal details to bring the persona to life.

Scenarios are concrete descriptions of an activity.



These are some of the personas I created after repeatedly reading stuff you guys mentioned above and from my limited understanding of the western culture. Apologies in advance if these personas offend anyone! Suggestions / changes / additions are most welcome.


Joseph-
Joseph, a resident of Texas, is a 50 year old guy and loves photography. He is very organised and likes to keep things up-to-date. He is a father of Angelina(25) & Jack(21), both of whom are away in Miami and New York for studies and job respectively.

Like his father, Jack is also a photography freak and he regularly sends photos via photobucket or email. Joseph, after coming home from work logs on the net and checks for new photos atleast thrice a week! He downloads each and every photo and sorts them by time, place and event. He then patiently waits for a social gathering where he can showoff his son's pics and his own scanned pics. Martha, Joseph's wife prefers only prints and is thus saved from viewing the huge digital collection that the two men have made.

Sometimes, he mails few photos to Angelina (Few because uploading/attaching takes time and bandwidth) and to his 70 year old mom who just got a computer and never shutsoff the machine thinking 'what if it does not turn back on'. Even Joseph was no different when he started using a PC 4 years back, but being an explorative person, he quickly got a hang of it.



Martin-
Martin, a Canadian, is a 55 year guy who got divorced few years ago and is a father of 4 kids, 1 of whom lives with his ex-wife Darcy who shifted to USA after the divorce and other 3 kids are away in different parts of Canada.

Martin has worked as a librarian all his life. He is going to get married to his long time friend Mary who went through a bad patch few years back. Mary works with a travel company and is always on the move.

Martin is very close to his kids of first marriage and they occasionally share photos and keep each other updated. Like, his daughter gave birth to a baby boy and she sent the pics to Martin and Darcy by sharing on flickr. Many a times, Martin forwards these pics / links to Mary. Martin still uses Windows 95 and is willing to shift to new softwares only if they save considerable time to accomplish the task.



Sophie-
Sophie is a 45 year old teenager! Very enthusiastic and makes sure she doesn't miss a party. On weekdays she goes to office, and on some weekends stays home... when she is the host of the party! She loves people and everyday she calls up some distant family member or one of her many friends.

She is financially blessed right from the day she was born to her marriage with a very cool-headed CEO of a company. Before marriage, she was his secretary, now, she holds 40% stake in the company.

She likes sharing whatever she is doing in life with her family and friends. She is on orkut, shares frequently on myspace, flickr; uses yahoo, msn and gtalk messengers. But, she knows only how to communicate using these softwares. She has no idea how to turn off the 'ding' sound in yahoo messenger.

[rockion]

That sounds detailed, :-),

[Sylvander]

So much to tell, so much detail...
Where to begin?

1. I'm interested in Genealogy.
Photographic images are swapped between myself and others all over planet earth.
Contact possibly made via http://www.genesconnected.co.uk/
Often photo's, but also often images of BMD [Birth/Marriage/Death], or Census records.
a) e.g. One of the related persons with whom I'm in contact is a 2nd cousin once removed now in Canada [the family moved to Canada when he was young].
He is my mothers' fathers' fathers' oldest sister's son's, son's, son. [3 generations back, 3 generations forward]
We have exchanged lots of useful info to help each other build our respective, and common branches of the tree.
Yesterday I was entering info from an 1841 Census record [needs to be checked because it may not apply][he got it at http://www.scotlandspeople.gov.uk/ and sent it to me] of a husband [born about 1791 in Ireland] and wife [born about 1796 in Ireland] and 6 children.
First child was born in Ireland in 1821. [I guess they married there before the birth]
2nd to 6th children were born in Ayrshire in 1823, 26, 28, 31, [children missing? 33, 35] 37.
They got out of Ireland before the 2nd great famine in 1845.
He died in 1867 aged 73 [so said the record] of Peritonitis and paralysis of the bladder.
One generation down in 1892 my mother's fathers' father died aged 67 of "Chronic Nephritic Dropsy", and one of his sons died aged 33 in 1900 of "Bright's Disease" or "Chronic Nephritis" which is associated with dropsy.
Dropsy is caused by chronic lead poisoning.
And yet the mother of the husband above was born in 1765 in Ireland and died aged 100 in 1865 of "Old age and infirmity" in "Gatehouse of Fleet", Kirkcudbrightshire, Scotland.
So much detail from swapped tif image files!

b) e.g A photo image of the top half of the right-hand page in the marriage register of an 1814 Marriage record, as a jpg file...
.
http://i18.photobucket.com/albums/b121/Sylvander/4d991df3.jpg

[rockion]

What do you call the paper certified a married couple ?
And the dirvorce one too ?

[Rick]

In these personas
You have them using Computers

With the ever growing popularity of Digital cameras and file sharing.
Many people have access to them.
However there are those ( My In laws) who don't even program the flashing 12:00 off the Dvd we got them for ( any holiday) years ago or the Aunt who doesn't even have a VHS in the house never mind the computer or dvd

There is a need for printed copy of photos
Snail Mail them.
Burn to DVD and In a few cases record the slide show from the dvd to a VHS tape :(

For those who can only view using their webtv just send the link

Example here is My Dad and the rest of the B24 crew in (Rackheath Airbase) England 1945

http://www.the467tharchive.org/images/langcrewphotorackheath.JPG

scanned and uploaded to a group website unedited

[Sylvander]

"What do you call the paper certified a married couple?"
Remember...
A piece of paper does not a marriage make [it might be forged].
My idea is...
1. It's a personal commitment that a couple make to each other.
2. They declare that commitment before witnesses.
3. Some authority [religion and/or state] accepts their commitment, and is prepared to give that the backing of the power in its possession.
4. A record is made of the fact and held in a safe place as THE PRIMARY FORM OF PROOF [we call these "Primary Sources"].
This doesn't always succeed; almost all the Irish civil records were destroyed by fire at the record office in Dublin in the early 1900's during the uprising.
5. Individuals can obtain copies [perhaps certified copies] of the original record in the registers.

My own marriage certificate [before me now] says it is an...
"Extract of an Entry in a Register of Marriages
kept under the Registration of Births, Deaths and Marriages (Scotland) Act 1965".
The information on it has been typed in black onto a standard certificate printed in green ink on a pale green paper and signed in black ink by the Assistant Registrar.
Certified copies of old records usually include a photo image of the section of the original register that includes the information entered.
e.g. It would include the signature of the individual[s] involved.
Did you notice above the actual signatures of the couple being married?
He could do joined-up writing, but she did not.
She did a few letters at a time with breaks between.
Only used a single L in Isabella.
Failed to use a capital G in Greenwell.

"And the divorce one too?"
I know nothing about divorces; only know one person who has divorced, and never seen the paperwork. :)

[rahulkothari]

Sylvander, you have a museum of photos! I am amazed by sites like family tree and people like you who help build such things. Sometimes, I wonder how many people actually use these sites... especially people in their mid-fifties.

In these personas
You have them using Computers


Rick, I should elaborate more on their usage of computers?

[Rick]

I don't think you should elaborate on computers
I think you may want to work in the printed copy as part of sharing ..

It's Old school I Know.
However most new printers feature photo quality output

I still have to snail mail everything to the two I used as examples above
They get far less in quantity . Yet they get far better quality.
Only the best get printed .. as noted in another post.
"only maybe 10% are worth saving"

[rahulkothari]

Printing photos... yes. I guess I will concentrate on different kind of templates for printing the photo. Like printing the photo with different frames and different sizes / ratios etc.

Hey, where or how do you keep favourite photos / loved ones' photos?

for example:
Like, framing the photo and keeping the frame on table or hanging on wall.

Or setting up a collage of frames on the wall (check the attached image)

Pin it up on the softboard

Keep it in a book / wallet

Or a stamp sized photo in the locket

If it's in digital form, then setting it as wallpaper / screensaver


Also, what is the usual remark when you are browsing an album and you like a particular photo?

for example:
exclamations like wow, 'frame it', nice, cooool...

I know this question is weird, but the context here is, like in gmail if you want to mark a mail, you can star it, or there is 'add to favourites' option, basically the terminology that most middle aged people use/would understand.

[Rick]

That depends on who is viewing the photo

My wife is more apt to say Cute photo ( Mostly baby shots )
And then it is printed and hung on the wall and added to her Photo album , Some end up as back grounds on her system.

Again referring to the In-Laws from above.
One Christmas I did portraits of all Grand kids . with a twist
Inlaid each one with a candid photo of the kid.( showing his/her personality )

They are still displayed on the wall in the stairway leading to the second floor arranged by age when the photos were taken.

Now they want to add the great grand kids in the same way.

[Sylvander]

"you have a museum of photos!"
The oldest photo I have [I think] is this one taken in 1895 of two young ladies [twins] born 1874.
The young woman on the left is the mother of the two children above [she's my wife's mothers' mother].
She didn't marry until 1909 when she was 35!
I also have a photo [taken about 1913] of her mother born 1846.
.
http://i18.photobucket.com/albums/b121/Sylvander/14427d84.jpg

[Sylvander]

...And here, more up-to-date, is my 2nd "child" dancing before a substantial size of audience at a University of Edinburgh African and Arabic Dance Society (http://bellydance.eusa.ed.ac.uk/) Hafla in March this year at "The Pleasance" in Edinburgh.
[She works as a researcher in the labs at Edinburgh University]
At a recent performance held by the "Edinburgh University Dance Society", she was the only one of the MANY available dancers who do Arabic Belly Dance, to be chosen to illustrate that dance style.
The whole gamut of dance styles were performed by MANY different dancers.
When she came on stage, the audience gave a low gasp when they saw how stunning was her outfit; the sheer quality of it.
That photo doesn't do it justice; it has very intricate designs that sparkle and gleam on a rich blue velvet background.
She had earlier [in January] travelled to Cairo on a special trip to buy 6 such outfits from a specialist maker there.
.
http://i18.photobucket.com/albums/b121/Sylvander/natalie-at-AADS-hafla-15.jpg

[rockion]

.....

Hey, where or how do you keep favourite photos / loved ones' photos?

for example:
Like, framing the photo and keeping the frame on table or hanging on wall.

Or setting up a collage of frames on the wall (check the attached image)

Pin it up on the softboard

Keep it in a book / wallet

Or a stamp sized photo in the locket

If it's in digital form, then setting it as wallpaper / screensaver


Also, what is the usual remark when you are browsing an album and you like a particular photo?

for example:
exclamations like wow, 'frame it', nice, cooool...
.....

I am sorry I have a word on the picture you posted that in my culture, only after the ancestors passed away, the offspring will frame all the pictures like that and leave some place all together to worship.
Usually all of those pictures look terrifying to me. In my family, only my grandfather is currently put on the table, but rarely I look at them when I am at home. My grandmother died in her late 30s long ago, no picture left.

[Sylvander]

"in my culture, only after the ancestors passed away, the offspring will frame all the pictures like that and leave some place all together to worship"
Obviously, our respective cultures treat this [and probably many other aspects] quite differently.
I won't pretend to speak for others in my culture, but I'd bet we hold most/many beliefs in common.
I do not "worship" my ancestors; "revere" might be a better word.
I expend huge amounts of effort attempting to come to know them; who they were and how they lived.
"Those who fail to understand the past are doomed to repeat its mistakes in the future."
The more I understand who and where I came from, the more I feel in touch with who I am and how I came to be this way.
How things were passed on from the past, and how [through me and others] they are being passed on to the future.
I hope that my descendant do NOT worship me, but I'd like them to at least know that I once lived, and it would be nice if they thought kindly.

e.g. Here's one of many poems published by a Poet ancestor of my wife, about his brother emigrating to Australia about 1900.
You may not comprehend, but this would speak very deeply to the inner emotions of any Scotsman.

THE SCOTTISH EMIGRANT

To my brother John

The Exodus has come, the wandering spell,
And hill and glen and river breathe farewell.
The friends of youth rise up on every hand,
And seek the boats to leave their native land.
To ease his weary load the toiler flies
Our misty hills and Caledonian skies.
The future blooms a summer never sere,
With neither night nor winter all the year;
White rounds of time that never die, but swoon
To velvet shadows and an orange moon.
But harken! brother, for your heart is torn
To leave the paths your frequent foot has worn,
Those boyhood's roads within your native glen,
Which, leaving now, you may not see again;
That Ann and you again will never stray
Where moorland Dipool winds here mossy way;
Bughtknowes nor Auchengray nor Mountain Blow
Though years may fall your step they will not know.
Oh! let langsyne a mellow radiance shed
That links again the living and the dead,
That tinge of things that give, though faint and far,
Their quota to the sum of what we are.

Old Haywood times and talks - an ancient tale,
Three kindly greybeards o'er their weekly ale,
And plainly yet, though twenty years are gone,
Though I was but a boy comes back each tone,
Old lore, rapt looks on faces lined and grey,
Remembered well, though mouldering in decay!
The ancient press, the pictures on the wall,
The lantern Davock brought and Jean's plaid shawl;
And Jimock, too, again in garrulous mood.
On whose grey brow the sweat in winter stood.
I see them yet around that moorland fire, -
Davock and Jean, my mother and my sire,
And each a tender stop whereon did blow,
Chastened and sweet, the winds of long-ago,
When down the lapse of years so softly stole
Old memories like a bell heard in the soul,
For - old as childhood - friendships tried and strong
Smote life's chill shadows back with shafts of song,
When Jimock gave his favourite 'Banks o' Ayr,'
That darkly sweet blown landscape of despair
That Coila's minstrel saw, that exile-night
His visioned laurel-wreath had vanished quite -
And he, with lonely step and bursting heart,
His ancient haunts had sought, with them to part.

Such was the story, meant not for my ears,
Preamble to the song, ere Jimock rears
His awkward collier figure, leant for ease,
His shoulder high against the mantel-piece,
His old hard voice distinct, with graphic pause,
An artist true, the scene sublimely draws.
‘The gloomy night,' it ran, 'is gathering fast,
Loud roars,' all heard, 'the wild inconstant blast.'
Dumb where I stood against the window-pane,
Between each pause was heard the winter's rain.
Though rough as rock yet cleanly cleft each word,
No softer voice e're found as deep a chord.
The hurried harshness - yea, the faltering tone
Had darker rhythms of sweetness all their own.
Through every line down to the breaking close
Each heart re-echoed to those farewell throes.
'Farewell' he sang, 'old Coila's hills and dales,'
'Farewell her heathy moors and winding vales;'
And oh! how thrilled that night to new-born care
I heard, 'Farewell the bonnie Banks o' Ayr.'
And, brother, in the years that are to come,
When life, retreating, beats her last low drum,
Those old old songs, of Homeland far away
Will grow in sweetness with your lengthening day.
Still, in the sad recesses of your soul,
Old names, though heard beside the Southern Pole,
Your distant path may cross some pensive hour,
And shake you yet with undiminished power.

Ring up the past! Bring pictures old and sweet
That yet may stay my brother's wandering feet, -
Grey cities fair, green parishes remote
That in his thoughts may sound a luring note!
And witch-blue glens and slender moony streams
That tinkle past the sleep-banks of his dreams,
Romantic isles by sad old western seas,
And runic tides among the Hebrides,
Names more than music, round our being wound,
Old storied Scotland crystallized in sound,
Her temple hills where atheists might pray
When amber gloaming drops on Rothesay Bay,
And o'er the misty Cumbraes, rising red,
The moon, great with romance, rears up its head.

So, brother, have you felt in wordless hour
Your heart's scarce earthly root put forth a flower,
Ghost-fingers touching nature's hidden keys,
Startle the soul with wild-bell melodies?
From places never seen, like mute caresses,
Come hopes denied and sweet unhappinesses,
And every tragic mile of moor and lea
Is blown with sighs for what you ne'er will see,
Storm-battered heights, with cloudy curtains hung,
Where Fingal fought of old and Ossian sung.
Ye hills, ye moors, ye pockets of dark fir,
Where the blue nights come up with little stir,
And touch the chord that reaches on past Death,
That hour when breathless nature takes a breath,
Grey wardens o'er the far Atlantic flood,
Core-deep ye thrill the tartan in the blood!
Though exiled far by Fate's compelling arm
For you in death I think my heart would warn,
For you I mourn when some true Scot is sped,
Who leaves the land that will not give him bread.

And, brother, when you go, when April comes
With primrose feet, and the proud liner drums
Her way down channel, when our topmost hill
Looks but a headstone in a graveyard chill,
Sad as if over-night encroaching woe
Had thrust its march-dyke forward by a blow,
When with last look you bury our dead years,
Here, where the clouds drift rain from their grey meres,
And the black mosses drink, I'll hear your cry
Till Scotland and the past sink from your sky.

[rahulkothari]

Thanks everyone for replying.

rockion, I took that photo from one of the research papers i read on elderly. I am sorry if it was offensive.


Rick: ...They are still displayed on the wall in the stairway leading to the second floor arranged by age when the photos were taken...

I can visualise that. You added a feel to the stairway :)

Sylvander, the 1895 pic is now on an A3 sized sheet. A friend who sits next to me got it printed!

Is the lady on the left and the one holding the baby in your previous pic the same person?

[Sylvander]

"Is the lady on the left and the one holding the baby in your previous pic the same person?"
Aaaahh, there's the important question to be answered. :confused:

From memory, the photo with the children, had written on the back [probably by my wife's mother (the baby)] that the lady was "Aunt Jean" [proper name Jane, everyday name Jean].
I recorded the various info within the jpg file using "Adobe Photoshop->File->File Info".
Having difficulty locating the original photo to check that! :(

That would make her most probably the children's fathers' younger sister Jane, born 1873 [therefore aged about 42 in the photo].
Does she look that old to you?
Jane never married, nor had any children; might explain why she looks so young.
The little boy in the photo died of Diphtheria in 1926 the day before his 14th birthday. :(

[rahulkothari]

"Is the lady on the left and the one holding the baby in your previous pic the same person?"
Aaaahh, there's the important question to be answered. :confused:

From memory, the photo with the children, had written on the back [probably by my wife's mother (the baby)] that the lady was "Aunt Jean" [proper name Jane, everyday name Jean].
I recorded the various info within the jpg file using "Adobe Photoshop->File->File Info".
Having difficulty locating the original photo to check that! :(

That would make her most probably the children's fathers' younger sister Jane, born 1873 [therefore aged about 42 in the photo].
Does she look that old to you?
Jane never married, nor had any children; might explain why she looks so young.
The little boy in the photo died of Diphtheria in 1926 the day before his 14th birthday. :(

...seems like Sherlock Holmes talking! :)

[Sylvander]

That sort of "History Detective" work is "small beer" when contrasted with some of the work that's needed to track down facts to establish relationships.

Just yesterday, Ron in Canada sent me 2 more tif images of death records of 2 brothers, in an attempt to establish that a person on my [and his] tree [Mr A] is their brother [the son of their common father], and therefore is linked to that family and all their ancestors.
The problem is that when Mr A died in 1892, his son [as informant on the death record] incorrectly gave,as the maiden surname of the fathers' mother, a surname the same as the fathers' grandmothers' maiden surname .
Got that?
Which made it appear as though Mr A was not part of this family. [He had a father by the same name, but a mother with the same first name and a different maiden surname]
But although Mr A's wife was living apart from him [he was not present in the home where she was living when certain Census records were taken], she was closely involved with certain members of the family.
For example, at the 1861 Census, one of those two brothers [Mr R] and his wife were living with her [she was the head of household] and her 1st child [7 yrs old at the time].
Her 2nd and 3rd children were not present in her home on the night of the 1861 Census. Were they with their father?
She was later an informant at the death of Mr R in 1874.

Tell me dear Watson, would you say Mr A was a brother to Mr R?

[rahulkothari]

hie, i was out of town for a week, so couldn't reply. But i don't think i will be able to reply now either! Read it twice, but am still clueless! :(

[Sylvander]

"Read it twice, but am still clueless!"
OK, forget that one; take a look at this next one.

A couple of days back I was sent [from a woman in Bristol, England] the jpg image below of...
[I'll alter the text slightly in the hope it makes more sense.]

Old Parish Register.
Parish of Tranent, East Lothian, Scotland.

Register of Marriages.
Page 132
Year = 1793
[The entry I'm interested in is the 2nd down]
Day = February 25th

[Text of the entry]
"Compeared:
Alexander Bryson and Barbara Grindlaw.
[Married] irregularly at Edinburgh, January 7th 1793.
They were rebuked, exhorted, taken ingaged." [entry signed to validate]

INFO
1. Compeared = brought before an ecclesiastical court to be tried.

2. Irregular Marriage = going through a form of marriage ceremony that does not conform to the norms laid down by this church.
e.g. Did not notify the minister of their intention to marry. Consequently no Banns were posted for 3 Sundays to give people of the Parish the opportunity to object or gives reasons why this would not be lawful.
There were probably a variety of reasons why these couples did this. As you can see, it was commonly done.
e.g
a) At one point in history, the Minister died...
Now normally his Deputy [who had served as assistant and waited all his life for his turn at the top job] would become the minister in his place.
The church hierarchy overturned this normal procedure and appointed some other in his place.
The parishioners were very angry at this and refused to behave normally.

3. Rebuked = blame, chide, reprove [suggestive of...cut down, beat, strike].

4. Exhorted = encouraged, urged [to do good].

5. taken ingaged = a sum of money was taken from them as a pledge, and that would be returned to them if they behaved well for a certain time.
This money would normally be paid BEFORE marriage [at the "engagement" of the couple], and returned if they did not have sexual intercourse before marriage.
.
http://i18.photobucket.com/albums/b121/Sylvander/1793MarriageAlexanderBrysonBarbaraG.jpg